Why you should fight Apple’s Subscription Extortion

http://thinkvitamin.com/web-industry/why-you-should-fight-apples-subscription-extortion/

by thekguy • 15 years ago

10 2 15 years ago

"Forget iOS and bring on the HTML5 mobile apps". Ryan is a wise guy!

pmoehring• 15 years ago

He absolutely is. Surprisingly, html5 apps haven't gone very big (even as installed bookmarks on the homescreen, or with the use of local caching, effectively mimicking an actual app) - at least in comparison with any meaningful iOS app.

Now, when Apple launched the iPhone, it only had webapps. One of the very good examples is the iPhone user guide, which is linked from within the Safari bookmarks, and which is a super smooth html5 experience. Based on the complexity of iOS app creation, i think it might even be possible that Apple did not originally want to publish the App store, SDK, etc (huge chunk of salt).

Anyways - the App store works because it makes money for developers. The html5 story does not, as it does not make money for developers, even if the experience for the user can be almost as good (or better than shitty apps, plus cross-platform).

Now, until there was a way to properly pay for mobile web apps, in the browser, not many ressources will be focused on html5. I hope this move from Apple will change this, and establish a standard before Apple will integrate iTunes payments in mobile safari to lock you out of that 30% chunk of revenues as well.

Because they can.

Why you should fight Apple’s Subscription Extortion

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